Staff of the California Energy Commission and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will conduct a workshop for the proposed Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System project. All interested agencies and members of the public are invited to participate.

Who: The workshop will discuss data responses filed and are expected to be filed by the applicant, Solar Partners, in response to Energy Commission and BLM staff data requests for the 400-megawatt solar thermal project, and work towards resolving issues. Data requests have been issued for the following technical areas: air quality, alternatives, biological resources, closure and restoration plan, cultural resources, land use, project description, traffic and transportation, transmission system engineering, waste management, soil and water soil resources, and visual resources.

Why: Comments from the workshop will be considered in preparing a Preliminary Staff Assessment (PSA) containing an initial analysis of the project's environmental impacts, including recommendations for mitigation and conditions of certification.

What: The Energy Commission began the licensing process for the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating Station on October 31, 2007. The project will develop three solar thermal power plants and shared facilities near Ivanpah Dry Lake in San Bernardino County, on land managed by the BLM.

If licensed, the proposed project would be constructed in three phases: two 100-megawatt (MW) phases (known as Ivanpah 1 and Ivanpah 2) and a 200-MW phase (Ivanpah 3). The plants will be based on distributed power tower and heliostat mirror technology, in which heliostat (mirror) fields focus solar energy on power tower receivers near the center of each heliostat array.